They walked across the causeway in grim procession, dry-eyed, three bearing each a young man’s head cradled like some priceless treasure in her arms. Eyvind came behind, head bowed, and after him the old women made their own slow progress, with infants on backs and here and there a tiny, stumbling boy or girl clutching their hands. When they were halfway over, a cry rose into the salt air, a wailing ululation of grief that bristled the hair on his head and set a chill in his blood. Another voice rang out, and another, until the very rocks vibrated with it, and the gulls fell silent before its force. Thus chanting, they crossed to the green field of the Whaleback and formed a ragged circle around the broken bodies of their men. It became apparent to Eyvind, then, that the most difficult part of the morning’s work was not his, but theirs. With a song that rose from deepest pain, from a loss beyond the measure of tears, the women of the Whaleback mended the sundered forms of son, husband, father as best they could, setting the ancient hymn of grief spiraling up, up into the pale sky and out across the rock shelves and the waters of the western sea, as if their sorrow might carry to world’s end and beyond.

Eyvind stood quiet. Beside him, one of the lads was doing his best to put a brave face on it, but his lip was trembling ominously. Perhaps that was his brother, not so very much older, who lay before him empty-eyed, the neck of his tunic dark with old blood. Eyvind put a hand on the lad’s shoulder; a moment later, small fingers crept into his, and the boy gave a sniff, and set his jaw firmly.

“A man can weep, at such times,” Eyvind said quietly. “Look at me, after all. And I’m supposed to be a Wolfskin.” The boy couldn’t understand, of course; none of them could. But by the time the disposal was complete, and the anthem of sorrow died down to a little, mournful melody hummed under the breath by one young woman who rocked and rocked a man’s still form in her arms, her eyes squeezed shut so tight it seemed she would never open them on the world again, Eyvind found himself sitting a little farther away, with his back to the remains of a low rock wall, and several children clustered by him as if seeking some kind of shelter in his own massive form. The two lads crouched on either side, and at his feet were a pair of small girls, their pale, translucent skin and long dark hair bringing Nessa sharply back to his mind. One touched the raw patches on his ankles with small, soft fingers. The other simply squatted there, staring at him round-eyed. A third girl, somewhat older, perched on the wall next to the first lad, and seemed to be trying to ask Eyvind something, but he couldn’t understand her, of course. He knew she said Nessa, and he nodded at that; he thought she said Rona, and he wondered about Rona, since the dog Shadow had returned. Had he heard rightly last night? Had the old woman somehow survived, against the odds? If anyone could do it, she could.